History of Ibizaby Emily Kaufman The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)An Overview: XVI

Hello and welcome to the history page. This week we will continue our
examination of the Black Biennium, a reactionary phase of government
within the Second Republic. As we have seen in recent instalments,
Azaña’s Reformist Biennium had effectively dismantled the triple base of
Spanish conservatism, i.e. the Church, the Army and, in theory, rural
caciquism. In response to this loss of power, the right quickly
mobilized and three new parties, representing the interests of a
desperate oligarchy, were founded. Within a year of the November ’33
elections and the subsequent shift in government policy, two general
strikes were declared, the second of which escalated into a small-scale
revolution. Before going on to discuss these events, however, let us
first examine the political make-up of the newly elected parliament.

Centre Caves In

As
we have already mentioned, one of the primary causes of the Civil War
was the nearly total disappearance of a political centre within Spanish
government. The progressive regrouping of public sentiment into
diametrical blocks crystallized during the course of the Black Biennium.
Presiding over the new government was Alejandro Lerroux, leader of the
moderate Radical Republican Party, but best remembered as a political
chameleon who changed allegiances as easily as the wind blows. In his
early days, Lerroux had built up his platform as an ‘anticlerical
agitator’ (a stance which pulled him to the left of the political
spectrum), but also as a ‘centralist’ (a stance which pulled him to the
right).

Following the November elections, Lerroux found himself heading up a
parliament in which his party held only 102 seats to CEDA’s
majority of 115. His only alternative to this dilemma - as he perceived
it - was the controversial assignation of three ministerial posts to
CEDA members. (It will be remembered from last week’s instalment
that CEDA was a militantly Catholic party, and hence at odds with
much of Lerroux’s programme.) Significantly, one of the three portfolios
awarded to CEDA was the Ministry of Agriculture (under Manuel
Giménez Fernández), an area which constituted the bane of civil unrest
at the time. In response to this move, Diego Martínez Barrio, a key
member of the Radical Party, accused Lerroux of deviating too far from
the fundamental principles of his platform and split from the party,
forming his own left-wing faction, the Republican Union. This split
neatly showcases the process of polarization that was occurring all over
Spain, at both the national and municipal level.

The Counterreformation

It
is held as a universal truth that man cannot halt the implacable march
of time. Ironically, the Black Biennium proved this maxim to be untrue,
for, within months of taking office, its lawmakers had managed to return
Spain to its pre-Republic condition. One by one, over the course of
1934, the reforms instituted by the Azaña administration were overruled,
while the passage of new legislation was virtually ignored. One scathing
analysis of the Black Biennium states that its political oeuvre “was the
work of a government that had no answers to remedy the grave problems of
the country. They could not even manage to conclude a concordat with the
Vatican.”

Agriculture Restricted

Especially in the area of land and farming rights, legislative support
was withdrawn from the rural proletariat. Moreover, a climate of
vengeful retaliation accrued in which landowners refused to hire workers
who belonged to labour unions or who publicly espoused leftist beliefs.
Fields were deliberately left fallow and, upon seeing the growing
panorama of hunger and unemployment, landowners tossed out the words,
“Let the Republic feed you,” (an attitude distinctly reminiscent of
Marie Antoinette before she was guillotined). As a result of these
vindictive practices, unemployment doubled in the agrarian sector,
provoking an ill-advised strike during the June harvests of 1934. The
government responded to the strike by clamping down even more harshly on
workers’ rights, prohibiting several labour publications and closing
down many of the rural labour associations.

Basque Autonomy Denied

Two
additional areas in which the Black Biennium took several giant steps
backwards were the issues of regional autonomy and political amnesty. As
regards the first issue, a third and final attempt at Basque autonomy
(see Weekly Edition 072 Saturday 13th July 2002) was
strangulated at the parliamentary level despite electoral approbation in
a local plebiscite. Several months later, the central government banned
the proposed convocation of municipal elections in the Basque Country.
The elections were held anyway, provoking a rash of violent incidents.
By September of 1934, the Basques decided that they needed some coaching
on how to obtain autonomy and turned to Catalonia for guidance. The
resulting solidarity meeting led to the arrest of 22 Basque councillors.
Before long, the refusal of the new central government to grant the
Basques a statute of autonomy forced the conservative and deeply
catholic National Basque Party to migrate across the political divide
into the leftist fold. Again we see how political sentiment in Spain was
gravitating progressively toward either extreme of the spectrum, leaving
the middle ground dangerously uninhabited.

Warm Homecoming for Anti-republicans

As
regards the issue of amnesty, a much-disputed and highly suspect bill
allowing the return to Spain of all enemies of the Republic - or their
release from prison - was passed in April of 1934. The measure enabled
such high-profile, anti-republican figures as Calvo Sotelo (Minister of
Internal Revenue during Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship and a fascist
sympathizer) and General Sanjurjo (leader of a failed coup in 1932 and a
chronic conspirator) to freely resume public life, as if no conflict of
interests had ever existed or could ever exist again. Lest any doubt
remain in the minds of readers, this ruling makes it crystal clear that
the ultra right merely utilized the republican political apparatus (a
system of government which it, in fact, detested) as a means of
destroying the Republic itself.

The Revolution of October 1934

The
unpopularity of the new government policies in general, and,
specifically, the inclusion of CEDA ministers in Lerroux’s
cabinet, provoked a popular backlash of disastrous proportions. Nor can
it be overlooked that the growing prepotency of fascist movements in
Germany, Austria and Italy began to cause alarm that Spain would soon be
heading in the same direction. There were certainly blatant indications
(e.g. fascist youth rallies, blue-shirts stalking the streets, etc.)
that such would be the case if workers did not unite in affirmative
action.

In
early October, in response to CEDA’s admittance into the
ministerial cabinet, the socialist labour party, UGT, called a
general strike which proved to be a frightening foreshadowing of the war
that was soon to come. Due to their debilitated condition after the
harvest strike in June, the agrarian sector was in no position to join
the insurrection. Thus, the core of resistance centred on the northern
mining areas of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Asturias. In the first
two locations, the strike was extinguished by Spain’s various
law-keeping forces in a matter of twenty-four hours. In Asturias,
however, owing to the total participation of local labour unions who
banded under the watchword ‘Unite Proletarian Brothers’, the strike
escalated into a full-fledged workers’ revolt that lasted twelve days.

Asturian Resistance

Thousands of miners, equipped with arms and dynamite, occupied every
town and village in the Asturian mining basin and then marched to the
principal cities of the province, Oviedo, Gijón and Avilés. Town halls
were replaced by labour committees which organized supply lines of food
and munitions to the combatants as well as medical attention for the
wounded. The committees also took control of public transport and
utilities while at the same time allowing the continuance of commerce
and preserving the mines from acts of sabotage.

Upon
seeing that non-military law-keeping forces could not check the
rebellion, the government called up the fiercest legion of the Spanish
Army, ‘el Tercio’, comprised of veteran soldiers from the
Moroccan Conflict and supplemented by native Moroccan mercenaries. The
leadership of the operation was entrusted to the future dictator,
General Francisco Franco, who, from Madrid, attacked Asturias from
several different flanks. After ten days of intense combat, the miners
succumbed to the superior force of the Army. The death toll numbered
over 1,000 miners, 300 soldiers and guardias, with 2,000 wounded
on both sides. In the wake of the revolution, many miners were tortured
and many others, singled out by the local caciques, were shot without
trial.

All
told, thirty thousand workers and leftists (some of whom had taken no
part in the strike) were incarcerated, including, strangely enough,
Manuel Azaña, who happened to be in Barcelona attending the funeral of
one of his former ministers when the uprising occurred. Azaña remained
in prison for two months, an ignominy which, ironically, elevated him
from his fall from grace. The injustice he shared with the common man
served to restore his prestige and popularity, and would catapult him
once again into the presidency in 1936.

Closing

Next
week we will carry on with the repercussions of the October Revolution
and point out some of the eerie parallels between this incident and the
military coup that became the Spanish Civil War. We will also begin to
witness the emergence of Franco into the public eye. Until then.